"Google Me" social network rumors fueled: it's real, heavily staffed - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1664980/google-facebook-social-networking-media-quora-dangelo-buzz-rumor

<comment><USER2> One component of what drove the adoption of Facebook was that it provided an opportunity to peek into the lives of classmates you'd lost touch with, or maybe never really were very close with to begin with. It was socially acceptable to request a connection from somebody simply because you were in the same graduating class years ago, and the payoff for both people being connected was to get a look into the private lives of somebody you knew something about.

The problem Google faces is that for everybody that's already got a Facebook account, this motivation has already come and gone. There's a large handful of connections that remain in my Facebook account that I probably wouldn't bother to request or accept if given the opportunity on a new social network. While you could argue that this provides a "cleaner" social graph, from Google's perspective the more connections, the better as it provides one more piece of insight into their users.

In order to be successful, the next social network must incentivize its users to form connections with some other payoff, because Facebook has already spent this one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google dropped the ball of Facebook and needs to seriously get caught up.

google and facebook are going to be competing in the online targeted ad space. Both have two different ways of delivering it.

Google delivers targeted ads based on intentionality. I want to buy a yoga dvd so i use google to find one and research. google then places yoga dvd ads with my search results.

Facebook approach will be provide an environment where people and their friends interact/socialize/share with each other. Facebook wants you to also share as much as possible about yourself, like what music and movies you like, etc.

This is important because every action in the facebook realm can be tracked.

For instance they have a chat, messaging, wall, etc, communication features.

Chat is an internet representation of phone calles, messaging/emails represents the internet version of snail mail, etc. So just imagine if you had the godly ability to listen to all the phone calls made in the world or read all the mail being sent through the post office. Facebook has that ability.

Facebook can have the psychographic profile of you based on what profiles you visit. If you visit the entourage, louis vuitton, etc profile pages profile can make the assumption that you are a pretentious person and target goods sold to pretentious people.

What I am getting at is facebook can track everything you do in the environment they create. This information will be more valuable the better they get at connecting the dots and developing matrixes. The infromation will also get better the more you share and willing to let other people know about you.

Facebook has ok metrics, but as time goes by they will better metrics to deliver targeted ads. The more people join and get comfortable with the more valuable facebook becomes because their data gets better. There is still a lot more room for this. What is good about facebook is people don't know they are giving up this information. So it is unbias data. People are giving up marketing information without even knowing it.

Facebook's approach to targeted ads is get the best information about you, construct a good profile of you and deliver the approporiate ads. That profile will become so valuable the more the drivers i mentioned above improve.

I am pretty sure the facebook can make money other ways, but they are sitting on a goldmine with targeted ads.

So it will be google's intentionality driven ads vs facebook real personal data driven targeted ads. Both can complement each other, but I think real personal data targeted ads is a huge market that google wants to get into because google is in the business of targeted ads plain and simple.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is the second time this week I've seen a blog post here on news.yc that was based 100% on a Quora answer.

<comment><USER5> Time to do a story on Quora!

<comment><USER6> Quora schmora. Just a forum where the digerati like to hang out, for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author is guilty of time traveling here. Obviously now we know that social networking CAN be viral. Its always easy to look back and say "how did they miss that?".

Also, buzz was meant to compete with facebook? I always considered it more of a twitter knock-off, as the user experience is much more like twitter than fb.

Google is definitely playing catch-up now, but its a mistake to count them out. Myspace got replaced by facebook, so another power shift (although unlikely) is not unthinkable.

</comment><comment><USER8> Google already owns the Orkut social network and probably it would be better to just improve it. If the "Google Me" thing is real, then it might be a huge shift from the former.</comment>


Ctrl-R Searches History and Other Historical Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nahurst.com/ctrl-r-searches-history-and-other-historical

<comment><USER2> I'm stupid, I didn't know you could hit ctrl-r repeatedly to keep searching. I use vi mode so I always try to hit Esc and then j/k but it doesn't work. Thanks for the tip!</comment>


Crafting Interpreters: Classes and Instances - <AUTHOR> http://craftinginterpreters.com/classes-and-instances.html <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Piumarta: [https://www.piumarta.com/software/cola/objmodel2.pdf](https://www.piumarta.com/software/cola/objmodel2.pdf)

A minimal, open-ended, end user programmable object runtime model. This paper really changed how I think about classes and objects and their implementation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been following this book and I really enjoy it. The style is in a sweet spot for me between "here's all of the code, just read it" and "here's some theory, go do it yourself"

</comment><comment><USER4> An implementation of classes with prototypes:

[http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2010/08/01/class-in-the- fr...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2010/08/01/class-in-the-front-proto- in-the-back/)

<comment><USER5> > This is the best of both worlds: prototypes are easier for the language > implementer to code and classes are easier for the user to use.

Of course you also get the worst of both worlds: the performances of prototypes and the split world of classes.

<comment><USER6> Can you explain how this is so much different in terms of performance? Since users doesn't have direct access to the prototypes, they're not doing arbitrary manipulation or creating long chains of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is this dated 2017? This chapter just came out.

<comment><USER8> ikr... tbf this book has been going on forever now :) can't blame the author though.

<comment><USER9> Looks like just two chapters left though.

I've been putting off reading it until it comes out so I'm glad I see the update progress here.</comment></comment></comment>


Forget Wall Street – Silicon Valley Is the New Political Power in Washington - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/03/silicon-valley-politics-lobbying-washington <comment><USER2> SV spends a lot of lobbying money in Washington with little to show for it. Maybe you can classify this under _new_. But Wall Street gets what Wall Street wants. The defense industry gets what it wants. SV hasn't reached that.</comment>


Schneiderman: Spectrum-Time Warner defrauded customers on internet service - <AUTHOR> http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/271821/schneiderman-spectrum-time-warner-defrauded-deceived-customers-on-internet-service/ <comment><USER2> It's ridiculous how simple and fair the rules for this _could_ be, if only they'd been implemented in law to cover certain scenarios that ensure honesty.

An example set of rules could be:

1\. Periodic monitoring of connection speeds is to be expected, and any action requires a minimum of X samples (say, X=10). Measurements may be performed by any party and the measurement method must be fully disclosed. If more than 30% of samples are failing to meet advertised Internet speeds by at least 5%, or any one sample is more than 50% below advertised speed, customer is entitled to a one-day refund of Internet fees. If more than 5 total occurrences in a single calendar month are failing, customer is entitled to a 15-day refund of Internet fees.

2\. If the Internet becomes unusable for more than 10 minutes at a time in a single month and the outage can be traced to ISP-given equipment, customer is entitled to a one-day refund of Internet fees. If Internet is unusable multiple times, customer is entitled to a 5-day refund.

3\. If company has cause to adjust Internet delivery expectations (such as, too many additional customers to serve original speeds on pipe to same area), existing customers are all _immediately_ released from any contracts and may terminate service immediately with no penalties. In additional, ISP is liable for crediting customer monthly bills for the remainder of service, proportional to the difference in service speed with a 10% penalty for violation of original contract by the ISP.

4\. Internet is considered a separate service and may not be bundled with anything else.

And it doesn't even have to say _this_ much to be a huge improvement. The point is that companies have been getting away with lousy services _FOR YEARS_ and appear to be largely unpunished, while meanwhile the number of customers overpaying _and_ not receiving stable and promised service numbers in the millions.

<comment><USER3> I haven't thought this completely through perhaps, but I've often thought one extremely simple regulation that might have a lot of good effects would be this:

ISPs must charge customers per byte transferred. In other words, no all you can eat plans allowed, usage based pricing only. This has the benefit of aligning consumer and ISP goals in the sense that providing fast service allows ISPs to make more money, so they are incentivized to provide high quality service built on high quality infrastructure. If the Internet is not working, they make no money. If it is slow, they make less. On the consumer side, it incentivizes efficient use of bandwidth.

Of course, this is only one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is that most ISPs have a defacto monopoly in their region. Not sure how we can solve this one. This is partially caused by bad decision by municipal governments, industry collusion, and it seems in part by just the nature of running physical utilities to homes and businesses (many regions also have electric, water, sewage, and gas monopolies).

<comment><USER4> Charging by the byte would disincentive users from exploring the Internet.

That effectively kills the Internet as we know it.

<comment><USER3> Well, sure.I for one think it is great for people to travel to far away places, but I still support charging plane fare based on the distance traveled. Like fuel and clean air, radio spectrum and fiber wires are both physically limited resources and it makes sense to incentivize efficient use of them.

You can browse thousands of web pages of text for the same bandwidth cost as 1 HD video. The way we use bandwidth today (animate gifs, ugh) is wasteful and makes everyone's internet more expensive.

<comment><USER4> The bandwidth capacity already exists from all the dark fiber installed nearly 20 years ago.

The issue is mainly with monopolies and Oligopolies of the ISP and telecoms providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have google fiber. The speeds great and blows pretty much every commenter here out of the water.

So why am I posting? I'll tell you why. I have found a perverse interest in the fact it took google 18 months to drag fiber literally 250 feet to my house. I measured it. My neighbor had it. It took them 18 months. They kept telling me every quarter, it should just be two more months at the latest.

Do you know how long it takes cable companies to repair a downed power line?

Not 18 damn months! And that's if the power line is beamed up by aliens and disappears. Requiring an entirely new pole and cable run.

My point is there is no panacea so far. Cable companies suck, and milk the copper tit cash cow for all they can. They won't upgrade their infrastructure and will not compete with google fiber and other high speed offerings. But they do get work done on lines pretty fast.

Google screams in infrastructure but sucks at actual deployment. I'm really unimpressed with google. Gmail, android, fiber they just suck imo.

I'm more convinced now than ever that laws need to be revoked and cities need to deploy their own fiber to the home network at tax dollar expense and operate it like a utility. Open the backbone for leasing as well to interested parties at a fair price.

It's clear telcos and cable have a chokehold on the legislative. Things won't get any better. Competition won't increase. It's way beyond time to nuke the current system from orbit.

<comment><USER6> > I have found a perverse interest in the fact it took google 18 months to > drag fiber literally 250 feet to my house

Did you ever get an official response on the reason for the delay?

The reason I'm asking is because I wonder if there could be a local ordinance or government interdiction that needed to be overcome in order to make what, on its face, seems like a relatively simple change. Incumbent utility companies tend to have a more streamlined process for requesting changes due to their familiarity and rapport with the local government processes and personnel.

<comment><USER5> The reason it took 18 months was "a crushed conduit". That was the only thing holding them up. And it took them 18 months to dig it up and repair it.

No one takes that long to repair infrastructure. No one! Not electricity companies. Not gas companies. Not cable companies. Not telcos. Google should be ASHAMED they took a year and a half to fix that! And should have given me 18 months free service to make up for it.

Also google bills a month ahead. Who does that?? Who bills for services not yet rendered??

Yeah I'm not not impressed with google. At all. I can't fathom they were able to get as big as they did.

And as far as ordinances and interdiction that was supposed to be the reason Kansas City was the first google fiber city. Because the city relaxed a bunch of regs so it would be easier for google to deploy fiber. Easier.

<comment><USER7> > Also google bills a month ahead. Who does that?? Who bills for services not > yet rendered??

TimeWarner does.

[https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/faqs/faqs- account...](https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/faqs/faqs-account-and- billing/billing/why-does-twc-bill-one-month-in.html)

<comment><USER6> I think it mostly boils down to fixed-price vs usage-based billing. It seems like utility companies that do usage-based billing (cellphone service providers, electricity, water, etc) typically bill for the previous month so that they can wait for the usage metrics to come in.

For fixed-price services like cable service, video subscription services, housing, etc. I've had a consistent experience of being asked to pay for the next month up front. (They typically phrase this as "at the beginning of the billing cycle" on their terms of service.) I'm guessing the reason is that when it's done this way it reduces the risk of the customer defaulting on the amount after the service has already been consumed.

> Monthly charges are billed at the beginning of your billing cycle and may > take a few days after the billing date to appear on your account.

[https://help.netflix.com/en/node/27](https://help.netflix.com/en/node/27)

> We automatically bill your Payment Method on the calendar day corresponding > to commencement of your subscription.

[https://www.hulu.com/terms](https://www.hulu.com/terms)

> You pay for your subscription in advance of the covered month.

[http://help.hbonow.com/app/answers/detailHBO/a_id/139/~/how-...](http://help.hbonow.com/app/answers/detailHBO/a_id/139/~/how- do-i-cancel-my-hbo-now-subscription%3F#billing-cycle)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Somewhat off-topic, but whenever you have trouble with customer service ripping you off or giving you a hard time, there is a magical incantation that works almost every time:

"If $company does not refund/provide the service that I paid for, my next call will be to the State Attorney General of $homestate and the State Attorney General of the state your company is incorporated in, for charges of fraud."

It's the upgraded version of "I want to speak with your supervisor," and it has never failed me.

<comment><USER8> I think that works if the customer service person understands that... or even cares.

Many customer service workers are underpaid/overworked and DGAF.

<comment><USER9> You don't drop that line until you're talking to a supervisor. Also, depending on what your internet is provided over and your local laws, "public utilities commission" can be another power word: fix my service.

<comment><USER10> I previously worked at an outsourced call center that handled internet support for Cox Communications. I worked there for three years in both tier 1 and tier 2 support positions. Just because you are transferred to someone that answers the phone saying they are a supervisor doesn't mean they are or that they have any more authority than the previous person. I don't know about other call centers but at this one escalating a call to a supervisor only amounted to transferring the call to one of my coworkers on the floor. Sometimes the cubicle right next to me. I took 100s of these highly escalated calls myself during my time there. I wasn't the supervisor of anything. After you've worked there long enough (about six months) to prove you can handle a call you are magically qualified to answer escalated calls saying you are a "floor supervisor."

Threatening to call or write some gov't body doesn't mean anything at this level. The support reps are not there to fix your problems or improve your services. They exist to satisfy your outrage and or upsell you. As long as your anger is satisfied, you will probably keep paying your bill. If your outrage can not be satisfied with the tools that reps have access to such as a form of credit, a new modem, or a service call you are wasting your breath. From what I could tell higher corporate people at cable/telcos are highly insulated to consumer feedback. The only thing that they understand is service cancellations by the 100,000s maybe millions. Massive numbers of customers jumping ship would get there attention. How long have people been cutting the cord in favor of Netflix etc and cable companies are just now beginning to come up with competing offers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't wait for the day when ISPs are held accountable for failing to provide the speeds we pay for.

<comment><USER12> me either, any ideas on how we can do this? I'm currently supposedly guaranteed 100mbs yet my 50mbs fios was leaps and bounds better than one I'm getting now [fios not available in my new area]

<comment><USER13> Start by requiring more transparency in advertising. Customers deserve to know exactly what they are buying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Consumer fiber-optic for $40/month just hit my area. The advertised speeds are 1000 Mbps down, 100 Mbps up.

I've been able to sustain 760 Mbps down and 105 Mbps up, it's the most satisfying experience I've had on the internet.

<comment><USER15> I have AT&T's $90/month fiber at my house. It's gigabit up/down and I always see at least 95% of that when I test it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I began reading the article, I was hoping it would detail their deceptive bandwidth management policies. I had the service for about 3 years (recently terminated) and found that speeds would slowly degrade over months. In the end my 200mbps service was giving me about 50mbps. The cable-modem link diagnostics indicated good signal levels and nearly non-existent error rates so obviously it had nothing to do with the cable plant.

<comment><USER17> Serious question: What would Comcast do that would cause that?

Would they give you a higher proportion of bandwidth when you first subscribe for internet service (and checking speedtest.net), eventually reducing it to give way to other new subscribers? Or do they just not perform sufficient maintenance to keep the high speed?

<comment><USER18> I could see this happening if there is an oversubscribed uplink that gets worse as more subscribers are added over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Have had TWC now Spectrum. In two years the price has gone from $35 to $60. There is no cheaper tier, according to them. I use it over wifi so couldn't even use their supposed blazing speed (100mb) anyway.

What can I do? The only competitor, AT&T is not very cost effective either and I dread doing business with them---just paying the bill was an exercise in frustration due to their constantly broken website.

<comment><USER20> You might be able to get a promotional $30/month for 12 months deal, but in general there is no good broadband for under $60/month in the US.

<comment><USER5> This is common and all the players do this. Almost all. Sat, cable try give you a lower rate and then over time jack it to double what you started with.

It's shady, and slimy. I expect nothing else from telcos and cable co's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Time Warner blatantly tried to rip me off and, then stole my money when I signed up for Earthlink.

First they put charges for channels and shows I never purchased over a 3 month period adding up to $900. I tried to fight it and they wouldn't remove the charges. I cancelled my service and found Earthlink.

I gave Earthlink a little over $100 to hook up a cable modem to my house. 12 hours later it was disconnected and I was told I owed Time Warner $900. They never told me when I signed up that the line would be owned by TWC or that I owed money.

They kept my $100 so, I called AT&T which was the only other option. AT&T lied to me and told me I was getting fiber at 25Mb/sec. When the installer showed up with twisted pair I asked, this is DSL isn't it? He told me yes it was DSL and I'd only get 17Mb/sec. I just tested it on Fast.com and I get 12Mb/sec. Oh well, this is the only choice I have left for working at home at this point.

</comment><comment><USER22> We were recently converted from Time Warner to Spectrum. It was all handled over the phone, and at no point did the customer service rep mention anything about my docsis 2.0 modem not supporting the "up to 60Mbit" they were advertising. Since this was my own modem, I won't fault them too much, but they really should make sure their customers have the correct equipment to take advantage of the service they're buying. Luckily, Spectrum does not seem to be charging for modem lease like TWC did, so I drove up to the local office and picked up a docsis 3.0 modem. My speed jumped from 35Mbit to 75Mbit afterwards (I was previously on 15mbit with TWC for $5 more per month).

</comment><comment><USER23> Curious: anyone else using twc since spectrum in nyc noticed that the ultimate/extreme speed increases are no longer available for sale/upgrade?

Seems spectrum maxes out at 120mbps, whereas they used to sell 300mbps. (or is that just me?)

<comment><USER24> I live outside Syracuse. After the sale my speed jumped from 50 down to 300 down, with no change in my bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is what this case is about. TWC did this to me. They leased me a Motorola SB6121 that is capable of doing 100Mbps. They then "upgraded" my speed to 200Mbps, but kept the price the same. The 100Mbps tier then became $10/mo. less than the 200Mbps tier. At that point, they were ripping me off for $10/mo.

I confronted customer support with a well-crafted chat message pointing this out, with links to their own specs. They moved me to the 100Mbps tier and credited me $80 or $90 for overcharging me, and didn't fight about it at all. It's like they made damn sure I didn't engage the Streisand Effect.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anecdotally, I have noticed my upload speeds with Charter Spectrum have been noticeably better over the past month. My uplod went from 100-150 KiB to 500-700KiB

<comment><USER23> whereabouts geographically? that's pretty horrible.

<comment><USER26> Just saw this. Nashville, TN.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to make sure VCS don't lowball us? - <AUTHOR> This is my first time raising money and wondering what some of the unwritten rules, dark secrets, lowballing techniques VCs use that I should watch out for? <comment><USER2> The only way to know your true value is to get at least three independent valuations. If you can only get one, then that's the best price for you. I find this to be true of any pricing dynamic.

In my experience VCs optimize for percent ownership and valuation uplift on subsequent rounds. So lower valuations allow them to get more per dollar invested and larger gains on subsequent rounds. The places to negotiate are pre vs post money valuation, deal closing costs, board seats, voting shares. Ultimately these matter a lot more than valuation which is just a vanity metric.</comment>


Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/politician-violates-his-own-two-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-111001/

<comment><USER2> This trend of laws which attempt to take away a person's Internet access is very scary. How is this to be enforced? By what logic is it considered a proportional or effective punishment?

<comment> muuh-gnu > How is this to be enforced?

Mass surverillance, mass punishment, mass censorship. You have a vast amount of information that people are not allowed to communicate to each other, even inside their most private communication.

> By what logic is it considered a proportional or effective punishment?

Nobody claimed that it is considered proportional. We're dealing with a topic that key stakeholders like Mark Getty are describing as the "Oil of the 21'st century". Considering that all copyright matters are decided completely behind closed doors (ACTA for example has been even declared a "national security secret" by the Obama administration, to prevent information about upcomming laws to leak into the public, to decrease the amound of opposition before its too late) and that all copyright jurisdiction is basically routing around democracy and public participation since its emergence in monarchistic Europe, they simply dont see the need to present those measures as proportional because they know that (in the near future) no population will ever be allowed to vote on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is just great. Here's an even better article in german about the whole story (from the german pirates) [http://piratig.de/2011/09/30/kaudergate-2ndstrike-sehr- geehr...](http://piratig.de/2011/09/30/kaudergate-2ndstrike-sehr-geehrter- herr-kauder/).

Lucky for Kauder, as a politician he's immune to law, but its nevertheless absolutely embarrassing.

<comment><USER4> Lawmakers that are above the law will always be a problem.

Edit: I do not mean that such will always exist, though I guess that's an interesting debate in its own right.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Is there a strong argument in favor of politicians having immunity, other than the fact that they had the power to make that law for themselves?

<comment><USER5> If a politician does not have political immunity, he can be arrested on trumped up charges by the party in power.

<comment><USER6> At least in some cases, it would be better of politicians had to 'eat their own dog food.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Politician's blog: (<http://www.siegfriedkauder.de/>)

Copied photo: (<http://www.vogtsbauernhof.org/content/view/full/213>)

Pretty clumsy move, especially for a lawyer, especially for a lawyer who claims to want to protect copyright. He's not jsut kept the image in his private collection, but is serving it to whoever many people visit his site. I have no idea about Germany, but in England it's the sharing with other people that becomes a problem.

<comment><USER8> He probably couldn't care less about protecting anyone's copyright. He is probably benefiting in some way (personally or politically) and that is why he is pushing for this.

<comment><USER9> "He is probably benefiting in some way (personally or politically)" ... besides being a politician he is also the chairman of the German music industry organisation. There you go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> they should insist his site be taken down, under his own policy any other site would have been for the initial infringement, irrelevant of the later change.

<comment><USER11> Of course this would be an obvious demand and ironic. But I suggest one should only insist that he retreats from his policy aims: accept failure and/or step down.

Asking for his site to be taken down in accordance with his own misguided policy could give undue legitimacy to this policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Of all the comments here, @codeup is the most level-headed for the HN crowd. Most people in these forums typically rail the RIAA, tell musicians they should seek new business models, claim that piracy is not stealing, and defend unethical behavior as it pertains to copyright tooth and nail. Then, when a politician fighting for pro-copyright policy infringes, they want to see the policy not just upheld, but to quote @dlikhten "on all devices/all his locations? ...his office staff too..."

It just goes to show how weak the defense is for this side of the argument. "See! It's so difficult. Let's just forget about the whole argument, but punish this idiot first."

<comment><USER13> "claim that piracy is not stealing"

Infringement is not stealing, or at least it wasn't before people started trying to abuse marketing to induce linguistic drift in order to promote their agenda.

I don't think "let's just punish this idiot first" is a reasonable can of paint to use. It's more likely to be taken as proof that the nominally legal or moral campaign of the copyright lobby is really just abusing the system for profit and power. Copyright lawyer or politician goes on about how horrible kids are for using Napster, is found committing plagiarism or lifting photos.

If anything, people want to punish them for abuse of power, not infringement. At most, it's "let's hang this guy with his own rope."

<comment><USER12> Infringement may not be stealing, but it's just as illegal. He's trying to implement a system for enforcing a law that already exists. In particular, it's a law where you get a warning before anything happens. How is that abusive?

Further, what is "nominally legal or moral" about protecting the rights of artists to be paid for the use of their works? If you build software and decide to charge for it, and someone else makes a bunch of copies of it and makes it impossible for you to make money from it, do you not want the law protecting you to be enforced? Last I checked, programmers have a hard time making money from merch and touring.

<comment><USER13> It's civil rather than criminal, or at least it used to be, so it is not really accurate to call them "just as illegal." It used to be you had to show damages and then sue for reparations. Regardless, conflating the two is disingenuous.

> what is "nominally legal or moral" about protecting the rights of artists to > be paid for the use of their works

"Nominally," as in, "in name." It is claimed to be done to "protect the artist" - while the same people making this plea are and have been shafting the content creators as hard as possible by any trickery and chicanery they can get away with. There is a moral argument to be made, but the parties who are usually first to go there are decidedly amoral.

<comment><USER12> The moral of the argument and the person making it should be kept separate. Everyone thinks the RIAA should go fuck themselves. It doesn't mean there should be a content free for all to spite them and pretend that it's not hurting artists just as much.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: best outsourced QA testing service / practice? - <AUTHOR>

Had an frustrating experience with a vendor's web site and would like to point them toward outsourced load-testing and QA testing services.
Seems to me there should be a service that lets you create test scripts to run against your website, then run them in numerous available browser platforms, then run n simultaneous requests with those scripts as a load test, and report back.
Like LoadRunner as a service for web sites.
Anything like that exist? Or what's best practice to avoid giving cranky clients like me aneurysms with a non-functional web site? <comment><USER2> Hey Rocky,

We, aka nGen Works, launched a service this year called QCat which manages all browser based testing. Clients can even sign up for a monthly service to proactively test as new browsers come out.

I'm sure there are other services, but ours is <http://qcat.ngenworks.com>.

Hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER3> <https://saucelabs.com/> perhaps?</comment>


FoundationDB proves the datastore is the worst place in your stack to take risks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nullspace.io/databases.html

<comment><USER2> I've been looking at Riak for a new project and this whole FoundationDB thing gives me pause. Yeah, Riak is mostly open source, but if the whole team were bought up and put into isolation, how long would it be before the community could really run with the code that was left?</comment>


Beijing Presses Hong Kong Government to Quell Unrest - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-presses-hong-kong-government-to-quell-unrest-11564404626?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> The headline seems obvious, but this actually is an escalation. Beijing is requesting change, by what seems to be any means necessary, in a public video conference. It seems to be a warning, until this quote.

 _"We have noted that the special region's government has already done some serious summary and reflection," said Xu Luying, a spokeswoman for the affairs office, citing Mrs. Lam as saying she would "change the administrative style, and listen to public opinion more openly and inclusively."_

I'm surprised by that language as it seems to be targeted at a Western, potentially even Coastal US, audience. Especially when sending Chinese troops has appeared to be a possible option of last resort.

All in all, I'm not sure what to make of the situation, but I hope that the conflict gets resolved in a way that allows Hong Kong to maintain further sovereignty. I doubt that that it will.

<comment><USER3> Saying that sending troops is an option of last resort is stating the obvious and legal reality (the Hong Kong executive can request help from the PLA by law).

While this can be interpreted as a threat, I highly doubt that the central or Hong Kong governments are considering the option.

Really, the central government does not need to do anything at the moment. Realistically these protests cannot lead anywhere and the only ones they hurt are Hong Kong people themselves and their future at a time when Hong Kong is no longer strategically important (although still important).

<comment><USER4> >> Realistically these protests cannot lead anywhere

Perhaps they could prevent legal extradition to the mainland? I think that people in Japan, South Korea and most importantly Taiwan watch what is going on. China has all the cards to play, but they will hurt their soft power if they are too draconian.

<comment><USER5> ≫Perhaps they could prevent legal extradition to the mainland?

Haven't they accomplished that already?

<comment><USER6> And they can pick it up later, when the unrest seddles.

So no :)

<comment><USER3> What do you suggest, though?

The government can propose bills. So even if they fully withdraw the current bill you can never have certainty that there won't be a similar bill proposed in the future.

Therefore I think that they have achieved all they could about this issue.

<comment><USER6> No,

Previously, Lam suspended the bill amid mass protests, saying it will expire next July when the Legislative Council's current term ends. But protesters have continued to demand the plan be axed completely.

[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/09/hong-kongs-carrie- lam-...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/07/09/hong-kongs-carrie-lam-declares- extradition-bill-dead-stops-short-full-withdrawal/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the running theory is "China can wait it out" has been going on for quite some time, especially when HK was more critical to the Chinese economy. I'm not sure that is entirely the case anymore.

China has been more aggressively pushing their priories in recent decades / years internally and externally. Internally Xi has taken hold and arguably the current Chinese government is far less tolerant of opposing views than in the past.

I wonder if internally the ongoing issue in HK is seen by Xi and Co. as something that makes them look bad. If they feel that the situation in HK is a threat (even if just bad PR) to them... they may feel the need to act in new ways.

<comment><USER8> This seems similar to events during the Cold War.

The majority of the West's major miscalculations occurred because they were evaluating Soviet responses through a democratic political lense.

When a fall from power means a firing squad (though less so now) or labor camp and total asset seizure, political calculus changes substantially.

If Xi's grip on power were threatened, there are a lot of things that would be reasonable for him to do... that would appear very unlikely to any observer in a democratic country.

The PLA wasn't sent into Beijing in 1989 because it was the smart play. It was sent in because the alternative was to cede power to a citizenry you'd just spent decades terrorizing and murdering. (The madness of the Cultural Revolution having happened about 10 years earlier)

<comment><USER7> Yeah and Xi seems to have much more centeralized control than party control in the past ... an individual (or smaller group) may make far more unpredictable decision than say a large party who may naturally wish for stability.

<comment><USER8> Mao had a bit. ;)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_Communist_Part...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China)

<comment><USER7> I guess I should have qualified that as "since Mao" ;)

<comment><USER8> I was honestly pretty surprised how short Xi's reign has been. I guess a few decades will show which part of the list he falls under.

<comment><USER7> Well he wasted no time in consolidation of power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The PLA will happily storm HK if the HK govt requests it... but they won't. The reason is money.

If the PLA move in, the wealthy elite in HK will start moving their assets out -- likely to Singapore. Political instability is never good for investments and when a handful of the millionaires/billionaires start migrating their wealth, it'll become a mass exodus.

<comment><USER10> HK only amounts to a small percentage of China's GDP now. This is also why HK has less free rein in its affairs. The "one state two systems" policy was convenient when HK was a giant in China and they needed the cash. With the economic free zones and growth of China itself, it's just less important compared to other cities in Guangdong. China would absolutely take a 2-3% GDP cut to be ridden of HK problems.

China is far more worried about public image and international condemnation. Especially with all of the other scrutiny on China's affairs (xinjiang concentration camps etc)

<comment><USER11> "HK only amounts to a small percentage of China's GDP now" Echoing this statement, HK accounted for 18% of China's GDP when it became part of China in 1997. Today its neighboring city Shenzhen alone generates more GDP than HK. Nobody saw this coming twenty years ago.

<comment><USER10> The Chinese definitely saw it coming. The special economic zones were a specific plan to undercut HKs power and fuel mainland growth, which the CCP directly controlled. The mainland has always distrusted what it deems to be subversive ideas. HK and its ideas towards democracy has always been an existential threat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> CCP does not care much. As someone said recently, the economical and political and cultural value of HK is diminishing rapidly in the past, and HK as to China becomes much less relevant.

The bottom line is no more political advancement that might causes dissidents inside the mainland. That's just no political reform in HK. And there should not be large scale violence. Everything else, up to the local government.

HK won't be a role model for Taiwan. Despite numerous people using that for HK to be treated as somewhat more precious than it has been. My simple read is that everyone in China know Taiwan is different than HK, no one in China believe Taiwan will go through HK's struggle. For one thing, Taiwan has a real substantial economy that is complimenting to the mai land and is much larger in size and diversity, and HK does not.

<comment><USER13> What would change in your assessment then were the mainland government to mobilize the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the next two months?

How likely do you think that is to occur?

<comment><USER12> There is various law to govern that.

I doubt though that will happen.

Plainly, military force is not needed. If HK was ruined, so be it. That's what I read from mainland's sentiment.

<comment><USER14> This is my take on mainland sentiment also. If it comes down to HK being torn apart by some group, the CCP would rather that group be the HKers themselves than the PLA. HK is sufficiently culturally, politically and geographically insulated that don't have to worry about the unrest spreading over to the mainland. They'll let them burn their own city down if that's what they want - and if they do, the problem largely solves itself because an act like that would alienate most reasonable HKers from their cause.

What they won't tolerate is an external force stepping in on behalf of the protestors because that would be a direct challenge to their sovereignty over the region. That's the one and only scenario where the PLA has a possibility of being deployed.

The CCP has time on their side when it comes to dealing with this issue. Are the businesses in HK attempting to conduct their day to day operations able to say the same thing [1][2]?

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-29/hong- kong...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-29/hong-kong- protests-knock-investor-confidence-in-city-s-shares)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-28/hong- kong...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-28/hong-kong-s- economy-hit-by-protests-finance-secretary-chan-says)

<comment><USER15> How do you know all of this?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Event Horizons, Singularities and Other Exotic Spacetime Phenomena - <AUTHOR> https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/05/event-horizons-singularities-and-other-exotic-spacetime-phenomena/ <comment><USER2> This is way beyond me, but Ethan Siegel provides a lucid rehash of scientific theory in general, and 3 reasons why Wolfram's new 'Fundamental Theory' is not yet anywhere near a scientific theory.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/05/13/3-si...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/05/13/3-simple- reasons-why-wolframs-new-fundamental-theory-is-not-yet-science/#4025fa4d13a1)

<comment><USER3> Wolfram himself never claims that it is anywhere near a scientific theory.

Theory requires a model, but not the other way around. What Wolfram has at present is a model which can be used to represent crude analogues of some things that may exist. It's flexible enough to be able to represent a wide array of different kinds of things, by the nature of being based on graphs (which define their own topologies) and update rules, which re-enact the patterns of positive feedback and complex emergent structures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I watched Wolfram present on his new theory when it originally came out in that large expensive book. He sounded like a lunatic. I don't doubt that he is exceptionally intelligent but I am not seeing his stuff being linked up with mainstream physics and that does give one pause.

<comment><USER5> Cue dang's caution about Wolfram Derangement Syndrome

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20wolfram&sort=byDate&type=comment)

<comment><USER4> I shall heed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading this does make me feel that Einstein's GR may not be the last word in the mathematical modeling of gravity. (Not to say that this feeling could not be wrong.)</comment>


Show HN: Generate README files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kefranabg/readme-md-generator <comment><USER2> > This README was generated with <3 by readme-md-generator

No, it wasn't. This is the antithesis of love. This is what "lovingly" hand- crafted READMEs look like:

[https://github.com/sapcc/castellum](https://github.com/sapcc/castellum) [https://github.com/sapcc/swift-http-import](https://github.com/sapcc/swift- http-import)

None of that templated "please star if you like this" bullshit (your project's README is NOT the place to be explaining GitHub's UI), but all of the information that people actually need to use the program.

I just can't stand this phony corporate bullshiting about how "we at $ANONYMOUS_CORPORATION are your friends and want to help you succeed" that's just a plain lie everytime. It seems to be an American thing. When I interact with American managers, they're all about "being passionate about X" or whatever. The German managers are much more focused on the actual tasks, i.e. boring in all the good ways.

<comment><USER3> The swift-http-import README is great. Can you describe what do you see especially nice in the castellum README? Honest question because it looks like a regular README (which is not to say that a regular README can't be great) but I just want to know what you find good in the castellum README.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The readme.md for the project is not beautiful. Maybe it's beautiful for html that GitHub generates from markdown, but it's a terrible readme when viewd in a text editor.

[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kefranabg/readme-md- genera...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kefranabg/readme-md- generator/master/README.md)</comment>


Rosetta Stone for Unix (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://bhami.com/rosetta.html <comment><USER2> Is it just me or is page conflating SCO OpenServer and UnixWare as being the same product a bit? Yes, SCO bought UnixWare from Novell (a now infamous purchase), but that doesn't mean the products share a close lineage, or actually merged, as a result.

It's been so long since I've touched OpenServer (say, ~20 years) that I can't remember if the technical bits of the page are actually OpenServer or UnixWare (I'd say OpenServer). OpenServer had Xenix as a predecessor and, though I didn't work with UnixWare at all, what little I did play with it made clear there were some substantial differences.

All of this is all but historical trivia now, but I'm sure there are at least some OpenServer installs running out there... somewhere....

<comment><USER3> They did actually merge the products around OpenServer 6/UnixWare 7. No, the names don't make a bit of sense.

While SCO licensed Xenix from Microsoft and kept the port going through 386 support, SCO Unix/ODT/OpenServer/UnixWare all descend from a separately licensed SCO System V release 3 port, not Xenix.

Disclaimer: I worked for the company that wrote the (in)famous C2 security subsystem for SCO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty outdated, Netinfo Manager hasn't been part of Mac OS X since 10.4 almost a decade ago: [https://www.macworld.com/article/1061097/netinfo.html](https://www.macworld.com/article/1061097/netinfo.html)

<comment><USER5> Also, Linux filesystems list ReiserFS, but no ext4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Updated for 2017:

[https://certsimple.com/rosetta-stone](https://certsimple.com/rosetta-stone)

Including:

\- macOS

\- OpenBSD

\- FreeBSD

\- SmartOS

\- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and CentOS) 7

\- Debian/Ubuntu

\- Arch Linux

\- Windows (assuming PowerShell per recent Windows versions)

This includes all the systemd commands where relevant, and current macOS as other posters have been mentioning.

<comment><USER7> There are almost as many glaring deficiencies and errors in that one as there are in the headlined page here. Just two out of the many problems that are similar:

* In one of the several systemd errors, it describes "system" and "package-related" service directories for FreeBSD; and "user, "system", and "package" service directories for SmartOS; but states that all unit files are stored in the /etc/system tree for the systemd operating systems.

* A whole bunch of stuff in the Ubuntu column is around 11 years out of date. Ubuntu switched from /etc/init.d/ to /etc/init/ in 2006, for example. And it has switched from that since then. "Updated for 2017" that page most definitely _is not_.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for your feedback. Both issues you mentioned - the missing 'd' in '/etc/systemd' and Ubuntu being updated for systemd (and me forgetting that Ubuntu's old SysVInit was different than Red Hat's) are now fixed.

If there's anything else wrong, just edit: [https://github.com/certsimple/rosetta- stone/blob/master/rose...](https://github.com/certsimple/rosetta- stone/blob/master/rosetta-stone.md)

The doc was made from scratch last year with a massive amount of original research. SmartOS and OpenBSD folks have already contributed. Saying its 'almost as many glaring deficiencies and errors' is wrong.

<comment><USER7> On the contrary, it is alas very right. The problem appears to be that _you do not see_ these many glaring deficiencies and errors.

Two examples are right here.

I pointed at the glaringly deficient systemd operating systems' columns, as compared to the FreeBSD and SmartOS columns, and you did not even see that, and simply changed a directory name. It's glaring because it's basic stuff that is right at the top of the systemd.unit manual page and in most of the introductions to systemd that one can find, as well as being one of the concepts that the systemd people tout about systemd.

I mentioned that Ubuntu switched to /etc/init and you talked about "Ubuntu's old SysVInit" and did not see a glaring error. Ubuntu stopped using van Smoorenburg rc, as I said, in 2006. Ubuntu's /etc/init for roughly a decade from 2006 onwards _is not "SysV" anything_.

Similarly, the OpenBSD column is glaringly erroneous as one can see by simply _comparing it against the very page that its entries hyperlink to_. The actual OpenBSD page does not say any such thing, and if this work began last year there was not the excuse that it began before OpenBSD worked the way that it now does. OpenBSD has worked this way since 2015. Again, "Updated for 2017" that page most definitely _is not_.

Incidentally, it comes up as a completely blank page without JavaScript. Bruce Hamilton's page headlined here has the distinct advantage of not requiring a more than 30-thousand-line 2.1MiB JavaScript program running on every reader's WWW browser merely in order to have some HTML text in an HTML table. The HTML text in the HTML table just works, even when there is no JavaScript.

And in the time since I wrote the first message it has started coming up as a blank page _with_ JavaScript. Google Chrome tells me that you have a syntax error buried somewhere in the middle of a 527-character-long opaque single line of those megabinarybytes of JavaScript.

        Uncaught SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list

<comment><USER6> > Ubuntu's /etc/init for roughly a decade from 2006 onwards is not "SysV" > anything.

Yes but nobody has ever used Ubuntu's init as upstart. It was always used via SysVInit compatibility and documented even by Ubuntu as such. This explains why Ubuntu finally dropped Upstart.

> Similarly, the OpenBSD column is glaringly erroneous as one can see by > simply comparing it against the very page that its entries hyperlink to. The > actual OpenBSD page does not say any such thing

Which? Every single OpenBSD entry is wrong? Are you completely sure about that, or are you using hyperbole as an excuse not to contribute?

> it comes up as a completely blank page without JavaScript.

Yes. JS is required for behavior. That's what JS does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lack of Plan9 so I leave it here: [https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/UNIX_to_Plan_9_command_translation/...](https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/UNIX_to_Plan_9_command_translation/index.html)

<comment><USER9> Plan 9 is not a UNIX as such, rather an evolution of it given all the differences, specially when its last iteration was Inferno with Limbo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like this was meant to be printed off and hung on a wall.

<comment><USER11> It probably is, it's been around for a while and is widely used by those of us who still have to keep legacy Unix boxen running As it's not like you get to touch your Unix box every month due to how rarely they fail or need updates after a decade of purely bugfix releases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For shutdown, I use "sudo systemctl poweroff". I thought the other syntaxes were still working only for legacy support.

<comment><USER13> This guide is severely outdated - I can't see any indication of systemd recognition in any of the Linux examples.

<comment><USER14> Yup. I mean as filesystems for Linux it listed Ext2, Ext3, and ReiserFS. A webpage like this is excellent to be managed via a wiki.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great overview! Very handy, however very poor layout in my opinion, I have to note that. Could really use some css

<comment><USER16> "This custom drawing feature now works in Mozilla/Firefox, in Opera 7.0 or better, and in IE 5 or better."

Well, they wouldn't want to break that kind of backwards compatibility, now would they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > A/UX

You learn something new every day.

<comment><USER18> I've looked at this web-page several times.. never noticed that.

Also learnt something new.

Here's another fun Apple Unknown: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4t33tOG60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4t33tOG60) [Linus Tech Tips] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz05U67NecI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz05U67NecI) [Obsolete Geek]</comment></comment>


Researchers crack the world's toughest encryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173108-researchers-crack-the-worlds-toughest-encryption-by-listening-to-the-tiny-sounds-made-by-your-computers-cpu <comment><USER2> Can extremetech please be added to the list of websites blocked by default on HN.

There is never any original content from that site, it's always rehashed crap, littered with buzzwords and reeking of the dead corpse of journalistic integrity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Research paper is here: [http://www.tau.ac.il/~tromer/papers/acoustic-20131218.pdf](http://www.tau.ac.il/~tromer/papers/acoustic-20131218.pdf)

Edited to add: This is one hell of a hack.

</comment><comment><USER4> Meh, sensationalist title.

Already commented on the first submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933678)

</comment><comment><USER5> Being _hugely_ pedantic, the "world's toughest encryption" is a one-time pad, and they didn't crack that.

<comment><USER6> Would the same method not work against a one-time pad?

<comment><USER5> I was pointing out that they didn't, not that they couldn't. But I don't believe they could anyway. Deciphering a OTP is absolutely trivial if you have the key. You're just doing modular addition, and that's something computers do a great deal of during the course of running stuff. Even assuming a reasonably long ciphertext of 500 characters, that'd take only 1000 operations (an add and a mod 10) - any modern CPU could do that in fractions of a millisecond. The deciphering operation wouldn't even register above idling.

Additionally, there's the problem that there isn't a 'industry standard' OTP app, so there'd be no reference fingerprint to look for.

I would love to be proved wrong though. That'd be very cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previous discussion on HN (270 points | 89 comments)

(Notably about why playing music does not mitigate the threat.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6927905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6927905)

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a patch for that in GnuPG, available in both Debian and Ubuntu. Update your machines :)

FLOSS is amazing. One day since research paper and your machines are already patched. This means that probably no one had enough time to actually use this attack vector in the wild.

<comment><USER9> I wonder how the patch was vetted. And what it costs- more CPU time? Slower decryption by what factor? Or does it just defeat the current technique, requiring new measurements to pin down THIS code's characteristic sounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is possible because of the electromagnetic signature generated by the processor's clock circuit while it is decrypting the data. The microphone is listening to the EM signal generated by the clock and timing the samples to reconstruct what the processor was doing. This type of attack is very difficult to carry out against a completely asynchronous or self-timed circuit that doesn't generate timed samples due to the lack of any central clock.

</comment><comment><USER11> these people, to me, are indistinguishable from wizards.

</comment><comment><USER12>
      >or you need to use a "sufficiently strong wide-band noise
      >source." Something like a swooping, large-orchestra
      >classical concerto would probably do it.

Unless you're standing next to a live orchestra that's playing the concerto on specially designed dog-whistles, you're going to have a pretty hard time masking anything near the 150 kHz range.

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps this can be thwarted by adding randomization to algorithm implementations so calculations are performed in different order every time.

<comment><USER14> I haven't had time to delve into the details of this attack, but I do want to note that adding randomization _usually_ doesn't do much for security in these situations. Essentially, randomization _usually_ just increases the number of samples needed for the attack, so it just ups the computational cost a bit. The same is true in timing attacks, for example, and I very strongly suspect that's the case here too.

The authors give some ideas for mitigation, however, in section 11 of their paper [1] (appropriately titled "Mitigation").

[1] [http://www.tau.ac.il/~tromer/papers/acoustic-20131218.pdf](http://www.tau.ac.il/~tromer/papers/acoustic-20131218.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, would running something else on the same CPU (getting the load to 100%) mitigate this issue?

</comment><comment><USER16> TL;DR: Paranoid? Turn on Metallica up to eleven when decrypting data

</comment><comment><USER17> s/crack/bypassed/

<comment><USER18> They didn't bypassed it either. They just found a sidechannel that was leaking the key.</comment></comment>


Here's how I deal with users who steal - <AUTHOR> http://pud.com/post/65374847162/how-i-deal-with-users-who-steal <comment><USER2> Interesting that the "scholarship" (free) plan isn't mentioned on the homepage. It seems you have to try and steal the product before being offered the free plan.

I also like the subtle dig, "if you can't afford it." I've certainly pirated things myself. If iTunes asked me, "We noticed you've pirated The Walking Dead. If you can't afford $3, click here to get it for free." By reframing it as charity I might be shamed into purchasing it. :)

That's certainly a novel approach. I would love to hear how it turns out.

<comment><USER3> What if someone can afford it, but isn't willing to?

To me that means the price is too high, so maybe also let them set their own price?

<comment><USER4> If someone can afford a product, but isn't willing to, then they should look elsewhere for the value provided by the product, or live without it.

That's embedded in the definition of a market--sellers get to choose the price, buyers get to choose whether or not to buy.

<comment><USER5> Actually a market is a place to negotiate prices. Seller-fixed prices are an American curiosity.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. But even in negotiated transactions, the seller sets the final price that they will or won't accept.

<comment><USER6> In a fixed market the fixed price still remains the upper bound for the negotiation. [Until there are more demands outside of the predetermined terms]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the sort of thing that sounds reasonably nice and we all wish we could do. However it stops working really fast.

I also have a web service and we used to let people get away with this sort of stuff. First year it worked. Second year, the amount of fraud was impacting bottom line and some of this users turned out to be the ones that used "support" the most. So we started banning bad users and blocking their support requests. The overall impact to the "good" users is pretty noticeable now. Not only can we reply to their support e-mails faster, but the overall system is also faster.

My mentality shifted. Now I think you "owe" it to the "good" users to remove/ban the ones who steal. They are most likely not zero sum, but pretty negative.

<comment><USER8> I like the way he approached the problem with the "scholarships" its really clever. But I want to agree with you, as word gets out that its easy to receive the product for free your going to have a large portion of your user base free riding off of the paying ones. Then it comes down to at what point do you continue providing the service when its not profitable to do so.

<comment><USER9> If that happens here they can easily remove the scholarships.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Everytime stuff like this comes up, I think of Cory Doctorow's excellent essay, "All Complex Ecosystems have Parasites" [http://craphound.com/complexecosystems.txt](http://craphound.com/complexecosystems.txt)

If you pave over your lawn when you get your first weed, you may never see the beautiful unexpected mutants that weed might create.

We wrestled a lot with this at 2600hz (and I think all open-source companies do). When your clients use your systems in ways you don't intend, you can shun them or embrace them. The latter tends to work quite well whereas the former only engenders bad feelings.

<comment><USER11> Great point. My cautionary example for fighting people who use your system the "wrong" way is Friendster. If they had paid attention to their users, they could have been Facebook. But instead they put a lot of energy into banning people who were "doing it wrong".

The way I try to look at it is that a company is supposed to be serving the users, not the other way around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How about adding an ongoing option to allow scholarship account holders to voluntarily convert to a full account and return their freebie to a pool, so it can be offered to another struggling musician? Such an option would allow users to treat a scholarship as a temporary measure, that they can chose to use, whilst getting established.

<comment><USER13> Or maybe: Create a free account, but XX dollars are taken from the payout each month to pay for the account. This means one can try the service with no initial investment but still have to pay when one makes money from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think your new system has a lot of positives, but it would be nice if there was a way to gain access to it without requiring the user to start by scamming the referral bonus. I'm concerned that you will be rewarding the users who are willing to cheat, and losing the cash-strapped but honorable users who simply decide not to sign up because they can't justify the cost. On the other hand, I can see why you don't want to advertise the scholarships too widely.

Maybe you could keep what you have, and also mention in that fine print that you do offer temporary scholarship accounts for musicians in need, giving a link to an easy but real application to be manually reviewed? And instead of automatically granting the scholarship to scammers, do so only after they fill out the application? In practice, you'll probably OK them all, but the hassle and uncertainty of the application will encourage those who can afford to pay to do so.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why not just keep the first $19.99 of revenue if they haven't paid up front? If they are making money they can afford it.

<comment><USER16> Or why not give them the option to pay as well as offering the scholarship option, but noting that with the Scholarship account, their first $x9.99 will be withheld? If it's not successful for them, it costs them nothing up front.

Little bit like how your can start tertiary study in Australia for free, but incur a HECS debt that begins to get paid once you're earning money.

<comment><USER17> Making it similar to the hecs (or fee-help as they now brand it) fees would be really cool of your first 100$ we will take nothing but of the next 100$ we will take 20c per dollar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That's a really nice idea - and I really hope people will respond well.

On a related note - distrokid looks amazing. If I were still making music I'd sign up for sure, just for the Spotify distribution if nothing else. In fact, I dare say if this had existed 5-10 years ago it would not only have provided a means to push my music out, but more than that, acted as an intensive to actually create and produce.

By lowering the barrier to distribution, you're almost certainly propelling a lot of people to working on musical projects which would otherwise fall by the wayside because there's no obvious end goal.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, I am speechless. This is fanastic, not only is DistroKid a great service but Pud recognises that even at a low price for what the service is, some musicians just can't afford it, so rather than closing accounts, they're giving users an ultimatum to pay or join the generous scholarship program. Take note people, this is how you run a successful startup. It's this kind of respect of your user base that inevitably ends up building loyalty and loyalty amongst a paid service like this is everything. Another beautiful thing about this is that Pud has just publicised the method some people were using to everyone. People who didn't even know about this cool exploit now have the choice of doing so themselves (if they choose too).

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe I don't understand your business model correctly but why not just take the first $20 of royalties from users that steal?

<comment><USER21> There could be legal issues with that. Might be fine as an option (either pay up-front, or buy "on credit") -- but it complicates the legal relationship somewhat -- did someone pay you for a service? Are they your customer? What happens when they demand a refund, but have only had 10$ paid out?

I can understand wanting to keep hands off the royalties and sell the service as a separate product.

I agree it might be an attractive option, to some customers. Might not be as attractive an option to the customers you want the most.

<comment><USER22> Maybe not actually take it automatically, but pop up another little reminder once they get $20 out of it - "you've now made enough through our service to pay our regular fee! Would you like to pay us now? Upgrade to paid | Sorry, still can't afford it"

<comment><USER23> "You said you couldn't afford the $20, you're currently making $80 a year through our service. Can you afford to pay the price all our other customers are paying?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Bill and Ted rule: Be excellent to one another.

On the other hand, I have to wonder about the story of the police officer - how much is it going to cost that woman to deal with the misdemeanor?

<comment><USER25> Probably less than the felony she may have gotten.

<comment><USER26> Shoplifting isn't typically a felony — at least at a grocery store.

<comment><USER22> In Florida, shoplifting over $300 of goods is a felony. The article I found said 'about $300 worth of goods' so it's not clear whether it would have been a felony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This reminds me of Les Misérables of Victor Hugo published 1862. Jean Valjean stole silvers goods from a priest but was caught by the police. Brought back in front of the Priest with the goods he stole, the Priest said that he gave them to him and that he also forgot the silver candelabra. The Priest than gave them to him. It was the first time Jean Valjean met a good man and this was a shock to him which changed all his life as you can read through the story.

</comment><comment><USER28> As an alternative solution, why not provide a free account only after all those 5 referred users paid for their first year? It will make no sense to fake referrals and that's why a lot of referral programs work this way. If you're interested in real paid referrals that's how you do it.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's a good idea. People don't want to think they can't afford it, so they will probably pay for it.

However, I think another pricing plan could be great : It costs virtually 0/year, BUT, 50% of the first $40 of royalties are taken by the site, and the rest sent to the user. Thus the user can still see he is earning something from the first track sold.

<comment><USER30> This hurts his pricing plan effectively moving EVERYONE to the "pay us when you make money" plan. I'd say 50% of the first 80$, that way they still get a check on their first sale but they ended up paying a little bit more ($20).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> DistroKid makes me want to start recording my music again, _just_ so I can use DistroKid.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why not offer a plan that takes the money after they start getting paid. You could take the full amount before they start getting paid, or take a percentage cut of each payment.

In order to make it fair to the people that stump up the cash first you could also charge them slightly more.

</comment><comment><USER33> Since I am a little lazy, can someone explain to me why this service is necessary. Does apple not allow musicians to upload their music to itunes?

<comment><USER34> No you have to go through a "publisher" of some sort who has an agreement with Apple. Previously sites like CD Baby or Reverbnation offered this service to musicians but they charge annual fees to keep your stuff up on the store. When Distrokid launched he said on Reddit that there was no need for people to pay these annual fees and he wanted to create a cheaper option.

<comment><USER35> You've got this a little backwards. CD Baby, for example, charges per album (currently $49) to sell your music through a number of digital distributors (and they also provide distribution for physical CDs and vinyl records). It's just a one-time fee, but you have to pay it for each album you sell.

Distrokid, on the other hand, _does_ charge an annual fee, but that's for an unlimited number of albums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Confession: I totally faked the referrals on distrokid, using 5 dispostable.com emails, and was frankly a little surprised when it worked. Strangely, I don't see the "scholarship" plan as an option when I log in, but maybe it only applies to new phonies?

At any rate props to you pud, for so many reasons... it's a fantastic model and a great product execution. It's the first product that encourages casual music distribution - but that's exactly why I didn't, and probably won't, pay for it.

I have 2 albums up on tunecore, that actually generate revenue. These are albums - professionally recorded, produced, etc. - that I spent money creating, and that I make money back from. I picked tunecore because they were the best thing available at the time, but if I were to do another big release, I'd use them again (despite the fact that I'm not thrilled with the company at the moment because Jeff Price is a great guy and they totally screwed him). And at the end of the day, it's because they have the most distribution partners, and because they send me a check every month. tunecore is for music that I want people to buy.

Then Distrokid came out, and I celebrated. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but musicians make tons of songs that never see the light of day. Maybe the song isn't entirely finished, maybe it's not good enough to pay for mastering, maybe it's part of a musical direction the musician changed his or her mind on. I've got a ton of these, and these are what I'm using distrokid for. I'm not really promoting these tracks, I'm not expecting a great return from them. A lot of them are unfinished experiments or lo-fi fun, nothing market-worthy. But I can put these up for my friends, other musicians, etc. to hear on Spotify at a higher quality than soundcloud can provide.

As soon as I make $19.99 from distrokid, I'll buy the yearly, more as a thank you than anything else. But until then, I'm probably going to keep my phony free account.

And pud - if you can match tunecore's number of distributors and earnings reporting... well, "disruption" doesn't even scratch the surface.

</comment><comment><USER37> That's excellent. Please circle back when you get some stats on the response.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't believe this will convert well. Converting to paying customer should include a positive reinforcement.

I would never be a customer of a service where the company tells me that I stole from them in the first place. For the DistroKid case I'd say stealing is a strong word for creating a few dummy user accounts. I'd guess many of us have asked friends to use Dropbox referral codes to sign up even when you know they might not continue to use the service.

If a legitimate person is caught stealing then one is ashamed and prefers other services.

</comment><comment><USER39> I read this article with interest and I have to say that this is a slap in the face of everyone who honestly pays for the software. It's like inviting a burglar back to your house the next day for dinner. Opportunity makes thieves, period. If someone is so broke that he can't afford to pay, and this someone is an honest person, he would probably ask you for a special discount, explaining his tight financial situation.

Poverty is no excuse to steal (at least not in my book). Not so long ago I lost everything I worked for in the past 30+ years, including my home. Do you think I steal my way through live now? No I don't, because I was raised that honesty is the most important thing in live-and that's what I taught my kids and that's what I tell my grandkids. What message do you try to convey when you treat thieves the same way than honest customers? I sure wouldn't take my money to a business like this(if I had the money). I believe it invites people to keep stealing from you, because you're asking for it. Dude get real, that's the wrong way to promote yourself by letting everyone know what a good heart you have. Yeah, I know times are hard, but does that give you a free ticket to steal? Absolutely not. And then you have the nerve to compare yourself to the cop in Florida...who indeed did a good thing. This was about food not a frigging piece of software.

</comment><comment><USER40> I dislike the comparison that the OP draws between scholarships and the given example of the officer buying food for the shoplifter. In the case of the latter, the officer is providing an additional opportunity for the woman by purchasing groceries that she otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford. In the case of the OP, the users making artificial accounts receive exactly the same service at the same price, and so no opportunity is being generated.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is awesome. I am confident there will be a lot of sign-ups and loyal users coming out of this, while it still helps those who struggle financially.

It is not optimal in theory to create rule systems that are abuse-able for personal gain, but this seems like on of those cases where it will work in the real world. I'd be curious to see user decision statistics about this in a couple of months.

</comment><comment><USER42> One purpose of getting users to sign up 5 friends for a free account is to get more people using the service. One purpose of allowing the scammers to get away with it is to be able to write a blog post about their novel approach that will in turn get more people using the service. I'm not saying that's the prime motive, but it seems like the goal is met either way.

<comment><USER43> My knee-jerk response was equally cynical. Something about saying, "Look at this 'good thing' I'm about to do!"... Why not do the thing and see what happens first before making an announcement? It's good clickbait either way; just then the article would have some substance and not be so cliche feel- goody. Am I a bad person for thinking this??

<comment><USER43> Also: anyone who has freelanced knows that those clients who are most reluctant to pay are the worst people to work with, right?

So why do we assume that everyone trying to cheat his system is Tiny Tim? lol

Maybe it's not good to reward them for trying to cheat? Maybe this enables entitled people to keep on feeling entitled to everything for free? Just saying. I get a little bothered when this sort of thing is met with no criticism at all. Like, he's giving something away for free? He is better than us! If only we all were so noble! lol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> "Stealing" has a very narrow definition. Causing someone to lose some potential revenue is not necessarily stealing.

<comment> V-2 I believe it's called theft of services. So of course you're right that they're not "stealing" the 20 bucks they failed to pay, but rather the service they were not authorized to use (since they entered the promotion fradulently).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> If you're going to play the "nice guy" card, don't offer the "scholarship" plan only to cheaters, while trying to guilt trip them along the way.

Letting people use your product for free if they can't afford it is certainly a nice thought, but then you should give that opportunity to everybody.

</comment><comment><USER46> That's a great story, and a great bit of humanness behind it, but my personal experience is that people will defraud you out of business if you let them. They will take whatever you give them, and then some.

Most people are actually honest, but you just need "enough" who aren't and who are also greedy (i.e. the typical fraudster) to lose your shirt. It depends on the model though: If the author's model is such that his costs are bounded and are otherwise absorb-able, given the revenue driven by honest customers, then he may be OK.

But, our model is such that not busting the user can literally lead to unbounded losses and these guys show no compunction whatsoever about driving you into the dirt if they can make a buck.

</comment><comment><USER47> Very clever.

I wonder if you could make this official with something like this on the home page:

"If you are interested in our product but you can't afford it, please send us an email explaining why you can't afford it and we will give you a free license".

That's it, no conditions ("at least two paragraphs, and it has to feel real!"), no lecturing, just asking people who can't spend money on the product to spend some time instead.

I wonder if the extra thoughts that would-be pirates would have to put into writing that email would be enough to make them reconsider and actually buy the product they would have otherwise pirated...

<comment><USER48> Maybe. But keep in mind that gaming the system to some people is it's own reward. In that someone might feel like they got away with something or pulled the wool over someone's eyes. Which could make them feel good.

Writing a "hardship" letter doesn't provide the same feedback (to those people). And while in some respects "gaming" can be cheating writing a hardship letter (when there is no hardship) would feel different to some people.

Would be interesting to test though for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I've had pretty good success giving away free accounts to my products to anybody who writes me an email asking for one. For Twiddla, there's actually a line on the pricing chart suggesting you do so if you're a teacher or student.

Marginal lifetime cost for servicing an additional account is roughly $0.00, give or take a penny. Marginal benefit from a happy customer with a fresh free subscription and a Twitter account is somewhat higher.

So while you can spin it as goodwill and charity, the bottom line is that it's just good business sense.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think it is probably not the money but the hassle. If you're not in the USA or have no credit card or fear using it on internet, creating five fake accounts might just be simpler.

</comment><comment><USER51> 20$/year is really cheap for unlimited uploads on itunes. I'm from France does it work here too? Do you even need a referal program ? You dont need to do that.

</comment><comment><USER52> Thats nice and good for you, your users and your business.

However, be cautious to not get the leechers, those users who are rich and still would suck others dry. There are plenty of those in the world. I believe for your service, they still wont do much damage to you, compared to the musicians who really have no money and just want to get by.

But still, be cautious. And dont call it stealing, its something else going on here, its fraud or malice or leeching.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is the most awesome thing ever. Thank you.

EDIT: Though for real this is beautiful and exactly what I want to see because it is what our users are capable of.

</comment><comment><USER54> Kudos, that's great! I think that's a very cool option - I feel like there's a lot of musicians out there who are dirt poor, trying to find a way to break through. It'd be interesting for you to offer the option to scholarship accounts to donate later - and then see which ones actually make it big enough that they decide to pay you back for your service!

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm doing something like that with the trial of my time-tracking app, Zone. ([http://rinik.net/zone](http://rinik.net/zone))

The trial version creates this file: NotTheFileThatStoresInformationAboutTrialDates.txt

If you simply remove it, the trial is reset. I would rather spend the $5 then do it every month, so hopefully my users think in a similar way.

</comment><comment><USER56> You are running a business, sooner or later your bottom line will be affected. What you should so is inform the Scholarship account holders that $19.99 will be deducted from their total earning of one year. This way it will be a win- win scenario. They get a free account upfront and they pay you later. You are still getting paid in the end!

</comment><comment><USER57> Its similar to wordweb's free version licence [1], after the trial it prompts a question about how many flights you took in the past year and based on the answer you qualify for free indefinite use.

[1] [http://wordweb.info/free/licence.html](http://wordweb.info/free/licence.html)

</comment><comment><USER58> This is neat. There is also the other conscience option: Whenever they make money and you're about to send it to them, pop a message saying "Hey, we got your money for you, are you _sure_ you kept your end of the bargain?". Then offer them a chance to pay again or subtract from what they made.

<comment><USER59> I don't know about this (and I see this idea expressed in other comments)... Something about that just seems wrong to me.

What DistroKid is doing is showing good will to users who for whatever reason decide to game the system. It's a fair and square proposition: "This service costs money, we see you are trying to game the system and instead of just kicking you out we are willing to assume you're going to be honest and pay if you can really afford. It's the choice we made (to trust our customers), and that's it."

Constantly nagging about payments, when they already agreed to let people not pay, would in my opinion and taste be just pathetic. The message that would send (again, in my opinion) is: "Remember when we said we trusted you? Yeah, well, that was just to get our foot in the door. We don't, so now not only will we take your money, we'll insult your intelligence with this passive aggressive message." I assumed you're proposing this message pops out as the second phase of the current scenario. OTOH, if they offered this kind of deal right from the start it would be a different thing, but please -- sans passive aggressive pop-ups on morality. ;) That said, I think what DistroKid is doing now, as it is, is perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Cool idea, but I can't help but wonder if it'd be better to have a "pick your price" option versus just giving it outright for free. Noble, sure, but it would be interesting to see the trends associated with what users picked. Maybe they were only willing to spend $5? Who knows.

<comment><USER61> That's a pretty good idea. The YMCA does something similar; if you can't afford the fees, you can fill out paperwork and tell them what you feel like you can afford, and they'll let you pay that instead (or something close to it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Interesting that the default mode for so many people on hacker news is judgement. I'm here to learn so thank you for sharing your approach. I find it a refreshing way to engage users who are using the resources either way. Would love to hear more about it's impact over time.

</comment><comment><USER63> I think it would be interesting to make it free to use, until you want to start collecting your royalties.

Perhaps give them the option to apply their first $19 in royalties to the service (or at some discounted rate, as you can potentially collect interest on unclaimed royalties at scale).

</comment><comment><USER64> I would just like to thank the OP for being brave enough to compete in that space of music publishing. The big guys are all but handing the industry over to pirates by failing to adapt to the marketplace... it's nice to see smart people taking advantage. :)

</comment><comment><USER65> You could probably write something interesting with a Spokeo, LinkedIn or Klout API that would give a pretty solid idea of whether or not you're dealing with someone broke or just trying to not ante up.

Great idea though! Nothing wrong with a little Shaming!

<comment><USER59> I don't think this is shaming. First of all, people who would genuinely feel ashamed if caught in this situation have such a punishing super-ego that they would be _extremely_ unlikely to engage in cheating in the first place. Second, if you really have no money there's _nothing_ to be ashamed of. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, and this service acknowledges that gentlemanly and with style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I like that idea!

Remembers me of the German magazin 'brand eins' that offered a 'social' subscription where you won't pay for a year if you're struggling with making ends meet. You just had to tell them, no questions asked.

</comment><comment><USER67> I was actually wondering how to detection works.

Just checking if all users have the same email domain name (with the exception of a white list such as gmail, hotmail, etc.)?

Or flagging users that are using mailinator/5minutemail/whatever?

<comment><USER11> That's the kind of thing you don't want to post about.

Abusers basically work as hill-climbing algorithms. If you catch them, many will just try again after tweaking something.

When in the past I've fought abusers my approach includes: minimizing opportunities to gain information; minimizing signs of progress; lengthening feedback loops as much as possible; increasing the cost of trying to get information; and, when you change things, changing several things at once, so that they have to figure out several things to get back in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A few other comments from the previous submission of this when it was on Medium: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6630114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6630114)

</comment><comment><USER68> Have you talked to these users about why they are doing this? $19.99/yr seems insanely cheap, somehow I find it hard to believe anyone semi-serious about sharing their music wouldn't want to pay it.

</comment><comment><USER69> Technically, it's not stealing, it's hacking the system. It would be one thing if they were using cracked or stolen accounts, but this is a legitimate loophole left open as a marketing tool.

</comment><comment><USER70> So they get free music distribution and free lessons from a moralist.

</comment><comment><USER71> I heard of products that were added to torrent sites by the creators specifically to get pirated, but after the install there was a pop-up asking kindly for a donation :D .

</comment><comment><USER72> I like you. How will you deal with revenue hit? Also, how about interesting them into paying for an account when their music sells above a threshold?

</comment><comment><USER73> Already a good idea, beautiful simple to use, now playing the good guy. I think this is something that is worth doing. Hope Distrokid succeeds :)

</comment><comment><USER74> How about you make $19.99 then that covers the cost of your account? It's a win/win situation for those without credit cards.

</comment><comment><USER75> I'd love to see how the detection works; is it just based on a fuzzy match on between the referred users' email addresses?

<comment><USER76> probably based off activity of the referred accounts.

<comment><USER77> Even simpler - just look at the IP addresses

<comment><USER78> People often share IP addresses. On our campus, we had a couple of public IPs for hundreds of clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> It's like taxes. Nobody will protest paying a lot, untill they run out of backdoors.

PS. I live in Belgium and we have a crazy tax % here ;-)

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm curious how you define "bogus" referrals.

New accounts with no activity?

A non-activated account?

Accounts created from temporary email providers (ie: Mailinaotr)?

<comment><USER81> Probably subsequent signups from the same IP address.

You could also put a cookie on the users computer, so you know if that cookie is present for 5 subsequent signups that have little/no activity, it's probably a cheater.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> oh man. that deserves a big heart icon. (i.e. this is jus sweet). Earning money at the same time teaching people to be adult.

</comment><comment><USER83> How can they detect user who refers the fake account. I would love to get this functionality in my site too.

<comment><USER84> I guess most users won't bother making it complicated to track down: same IP, cookies, session, whatever.

<comment><USER85> Does that mean I can't refer a family member?

<comment><USER86> How about 5 family members in the same household within a couple of hours?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> "Even when the user thinks they've scammed a free account out of us."

...

...is also always a nice feeling? What?

<comment><USER23> Can you really not imagine feeling good for giving away something to musicians trying to publish their music?

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Great concept. Not sure it will work but should be interesting to see how it plays out!

</comment><comment><USER89> Really like this approach - fascinated to know how this works out over time.

</comment><comment><USER90> If "we let them get away with it" how is it "stealing"?

<comment><USER61> If you leave your doors unlocked, and I come in when you aren't home and take your computer, that's still stealing, even if you know it was me and don't press charges.

Or for a closer analogy, since this is theft of services: If I hire you to make a website for me, and then don't you, that's still stealing even if you don't take any action against me.

<comment><USER90> What if I leave my doors unlocked and write a blog post with my home address saying I know my doors are unlocked, I know people are entering my home and taking things and telling everyone I won't take any action against anyone who comes in and takes my computer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Um, how many variations of the shoplifter story have we seen?

</comment><comment><USER92> I am waiting for the next blog-post to see how does it work.

</comment><comment><USER93> That is not what I was expecting, but it is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER94> This is good and smart.

</comment><comment><USER95> Love this idea. At a low cost, you humanize your product to your users, you provide people a chance to "do the right thing", you absolve people of their subterfuge, and you increase the chance of conversion. Even if only a small percentage of users do this, that's still a small percentage who weren't paying you before. Brilliant - I hope it works out for you.

</comment><comment><USER96> This is a good business plan. The larger music companies should hire some new blood? or, Not--I coukd care less; 90% of artists were screwed out of royalities on their music by thiefs. The successful ones are were rare, and if they made money, they just ruined their health with drugs and alcohol. Napster ruined the music industry model. Maybe it should stay that way? A good band, Protools, and a little effort will publicize Tallent. I've noticed a darth of anything remotely original lately. I hope B. F. Skinner wasen't right, and we have come to the end of originality?(no he didn't predict anything, but you can draw conclusions on his theories.

<comment><USER97> What are you even saying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> What a smug blog post.

</comment><comment><USER85> Personally, I consider "free if you refer 5 users" sort of an offensive trick. It presents quite odorously the falseness behind the $20/yr pricetag, and makes me value the ethics behind that price less.

<comment><USER99> Really? To me that means the service thinks that if can subsidize new users because the initial cost isnt as much as their purchases will make, and no business makes all of its revenue from a first time shopper (with rare exceptions).

That means the service thinks each user is worth about 4 bucks. Actually not that expensive of a lead generation if it brings in 20 a year.

I would be interested in your thoughts regarding this, because I have seem some lead generation sites pay 50 dollars for the right kind of lead.

<comment><USER85> You're thinking entirely from the business side; how a business perceives its profit model.

As a consumer, and thinking specifically to when I had less means: perhaps wrongly, but I have an acute perception of the value of anything I purchase in terms of the work that actually goes into its production. I'll pay for a service if I'm not being scammed, if some real human effort went into producing it. If it's just a copy of something that was already produced, then there's nothing for me to pay for.

Similarly, if it costs $x but "free if you tell 5 friends", suddenly the whole experience is cheapened. It's perfectly concievable that I could tell 5 "friends" and this has 0 effect on you. My mind starts to wander. Why should I pay more because I don't have 5 friends? Why should I pay more because I'm not willing to shill myself out and strain the relationships I have, to give you some cheap advertising? I consider the premise offensive, and I also see that maybe you don't need the $20 as much as I do.

It's not a great way of thinking, but I think the onus is on the salesperson to have some respect for their clients and not smugly write them off as "stealers" when their storefront provided what might be perceived by those clients as a _sales_ trick. _shrug_</comment></comment></comment>


Preview release of duse – Distributed Secrets - <AUTHOR>

Duse is an API driven system to securely share secrets. It can be used to share secrets such as passwords or SSH Keys among participants. During the whole process, the API is never able to tell anything about the secret. Right now there is only a CLI written in ruby to use consume the API, more to come.
Essentially what it does is, it encrypts the secret with AES256 with a random key. Then the key is split into shares with Shamir's Secret Sharing and each part is encrypted with the participating users public keys always containing a special server user. All of these cipher texts are then stored in the API. When a user wants to read a secret, the server's share is decrypted and encrypted with the requesting users public key. Once the user receives the encrypted shares, she can simply decrypt the symmetric key with her private key and decrypt the secret.
I am excited to release the first preview of duse. It has been developed as part of a paper I had to do at university, which will also be published, however, it must be graded before I can publish it. It contains descriptions of possible attacks and how to prevent them or at least minimize risks.
I am not a cryptography expert, so I would be glad to dicuss my implementation with more knowledgable people.
My goal is to release the first production ready version later this year, but wanted to start spreading the word and possibly find contributers :)
http://duse.io/
https://github.com/duse-io <comment><USER2> Looks great, I'll try it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we want all the feedback we can get! :)</comment></comment>